The Cage
by Nirv0rz
Summary: Alex Ashby wakes up to find himself in a strange town, enclosed in a giant bird cage with no means of escape. Soon, he will have to face his fantasies, memories and thoughts in their most darkest forms. Chapter 2 up, please leave reviews.
1. Awakening

"Where's your mama gone, where's your mama gone?"

"Chirpy chirpy cheep cheep…"

The voice sang within the sub conscious mind of Alex Ashby, a shy yet melodic voice. Just like the one the matron used to sing to him at the Wish House orphanage, a song that always put him to sleep. Even now as an adult, the whispered voice kept him in a deep slumber, just as if he were a child again.

_Caw, Caw!_

The young mans eyes suddenly opened, welcomed to the image of a crow hopping beside him. Alex stared at the crow, not yet fully aware that he was conscious again, his body numb as he watched the blackbird carefully edge towards him, twitching its head. It glared at him with its beady black eyes for which seemed like an eternity, and then as Alex blinked, the bird fluttered its wings and flew off.

Rolling from his side and onto his back, his eyes strained shut as his head pounded from migraine. Reality soon hit him as a tingling sensation returned feeling to his body. He laid in confusion, breathing heavily as he looked up at what was a white mist like sky. Carefully, he positioned his hand behind him, lifting himself into a sitting position. His head swiveled left and right, taking in a view of his surroundings, not quite sure where he was or how he got there.

Alex was sitting in the middle of a road. An abandoned street that had small story buildings and stores on either side. The street was succumbed by a thick white mist that stopped him from seeing any further than about thirty feet.

"Am I...dreaming?" he muttered, whilst lifting himself to his feet.

In a groggy manner, he began to stumble forward, his legs still tingling as he tried to take in everything at once, not sure whether he was in a dreaming or conscious. The street was empty, and there was an eerie silence, with most of the buildings boarded up and decayed as if they had been abandoned for years. If people had left town, they had to have been in a hurry Alex thought to himself, noticing that there were still plenty of cars parked along the pathways, all old models.

Yelling out for help, Alex stumbled down the street through the fog, hoping for a response. Moments passed as he continued to call out, but still to know avail as he made his way down the street, walking along the pathway and passing a few cross sections as he did. He soon came to a halt as he looked at his reflection in one of the store windows.

Alex was twenty four years old, and was an average looking guy. His skin was fair, with hazel hair and matching eyes. He had a slight stubble, and looked quite casual, wearing a pair of jeans and a sleeveless white vest top. Yet he looked like pretty roughed up, quite dirty looking from where he had been lying on the road for god knows how long. He continued to gaze at himself in the mirror, completely lost in thought. Thousands of questions raced through his mind, as he wandered what the hell was happening. Everything was so surreal, yet it felt so real. The last thing he could remember before waking up in this strange place, was going to sleep in his cell, in exactly the same clothes he was wearing now.

Gasping out loud, Alex turned around, pressing himself against the glass of the store as he heard a rustling, and the sounds footsteps in the near distance. Alex stared down the narrow street as he saw a figure disappear into the mist. Recovering from the sudden fright, Alex stepped out into the middle of the road.

"Hey!" he yelled out after the figure. "Help!" He called out again, but to no avail.

The sound of running foot steps soon drowned into a silence as Alex looked on puzzled and scared, not too sure whether he wanted to run after whatever had sneaked past him. Looking down, he noticed that the culprit had left a trail behind, something that definitely hadn't been on the road before.

"What the hell?" he asked himself as he crouched down and picked up a very large, thick grey feather. There were other feathers scattered in front, making a trail that disappeared into the fog. Knowing there was no other option to choose from, Alex began to follow the clues.

Alex traveled through the eerie town, soon entering the residential area. The houses were quite luxurious, with a Victorian influence which seemed to fit in with the creepy surrounding. Following the trail across front lawns and back onto the road again, Alex soon came to the end of the trail and slowed down as an impossible image came into sight. He thought to himself over and over again that he had to be dreaming, because there was no way it could be possible.

Stumbling forward with his mouth dropped in shock and awe alike, he stopped at the very edge of what was a broken, torn away road. The road had crumbled, the mist making it impossible to see if what was below the edge. The huge gap spanned from each side of the last houses, making it impossible to get to the other side, if there even was one. But what really disturbed Alex, was that at the very edge of the destroyed road, were thick metal bars fixed to the ground every two feet apart. The bars reached high into sky, the mist making it impossible to see where they ended. Alex placed his hands on the decayed bars, his hands feeling their rusted textured as he looked left and right, seeing that the bars stretched as far as he could see, as if the town was placed in a cage.

Alex strained his eyes as hard as possible, but he could not see the other side of the destroyed road, the mist so thick that it made it impossible to look too farther ahead or above. Looking around for other nearby roads, he caught glimpse of something he had not noticed before.

A large wooden sign was stood on a patch of grass, positioned to face directly towards the iron bars. Trying his best to decipher the chipped peeling paint that displayed the name of the town, he whispered to himself the place he was most familiar with.

"Silent Hill."


	2. Darkness Falls

Chapter 2 - Darkness Falls

For the past few minutes Alex had wandered through the town of Silent Hill, this time taking a different route to find help or a main road. Many thoughts had crossed his mind during his short journey. Silent Hill was a place that he was all too familiar with, but he thought that he had escaped from the place years ago. Being locked up in St Jerome's Hospital all day was bad enough, but being back in Silent Hill was a whole new heap of trouble. It made Alex feel sick as the memories flooded his mind. The orphanage that Alex was brought up in often took field trips to Silent Hill, to a specific church that would twist and soil the innocence of children, corrupting their minds and souls.

It wasn't long before Alex brought his short journey to a stop, to be greeted yet again by a broken road that was caged off with more thick iron bars. Reaching his hands forward, he gripped and shook the cage, but there wasn't so much as a shudder. It was too thick and sturdy to bend, and the gaps were too small to fit through, which would be pointless anyway considering there wasn't a road to step onto. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, Alex leaned his head onto one of the rusty bars, contemplating the memories that still swirled within his mind.

Alex was a patient at the asylum wing of a hospital on the other side of Toluca lake. When he was a child he had been orphaned at the age of eight when his mother died of a heroine overdose, and was taken in by an orphanage. Around two years later he ran away from the home after witnessing the strange acts that Wish House practiced. Even though he was just a child, he lived on the streets for many years whilst trying to prove to the authorities and journalists about what went on in Silent Hill and the orphanage. But all it took was one look at his record, and nobody would take him seriously. Homeless, thief, even a junkie. To everyone he was just a crazy kid that had been messed up by his mother. It wasn't long until the authorities placed him in St Jerome's for the sake of his and others health.

The medical record that was put forward to the hospital had been in possession of the orphanage. It mentioned Alex as being a schizophrenic, which when irritated he would ramble on about untrue things of the orphanage and church. Alex knew he was sane, and so did the many doctors that looked after him. But that one condition which Wish House claimed he had, would ensure that he would spend most of his life in a padded room. Still, he wished that he would wake up and find out this was all a dream, because he would rather be back in his cell than this place.

Tightening his grip around the bars, he kicked at them viciously.

"God damn it get me the hell out! I don't want to be here!" He yelled through the bars, his hands clenched tight as spittle flew from his mouth in rage.

Then, as his pleas echoed throughout the desolated town, a loud wailing siren began to sound.

_Whhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrr!_

The horrible noise caused Alex to lower his hands from the bars, turning around and staring up at the sky which seemed to be getting darker. The siren wailed over and over again, starting out quiet, then getting louder in the middle and finally drowning out, for it to start again, and again, and again. The sky kept getting darker, and at an unreal pace. Within seconds, Silent Hill was consumed by the pitch black dark. A shivering Alex pressed his back against the bars as he watched the darkness consume the street, some of the still operating street lamps flickering too life, giving off little to no light.

By now, Alex was terrified. His eyes were wide and he was crippled by fear, unable to move as he stood pressed against the bars as different noises filled the area. They came from all directions, horrible gurgling noises beyond the mist that blocked his view of the street, the sounds getting closer. Then came movement within the fog, at first it was just one figure, then two more appeared. The three figures kept lurching forward, the gurgling getting louder as they approached.

Alex shrieked out loud as one of the working street lamps illuminated the features of the monsters lurking towards him. He tried his best not to vomit from the putrid smell and rotting sight. All three of them were identical and humanoid, with feminine features. Their bodies were lurched forward, walking on two legs and leaning on their arms, or rather what he thought were arms. Each arm was like a giant stinger, or needle, and their skin was a decayed brown and crimson red color, their faces so deformed that they were indistinguishable from each other. They were definitely female, with breasts and slender bodies, and large transparent veins that curled around their torso's, a visible white fluid that pulsed through them.

Terrified, Alex thought to himself over and over again that it wasn't happening, closing and opening his eyes again, hoping that they would have disappeared. But still they lurched forward, their heads twitching and twisting in impossible ways as they gurgled their way towards a defenseless Alex. Holding his knees together and tucking his head between them, he prayed that he would wake up and to find that it had all been a bad dream. But they still crawled towards him, getting dangerously closer.

A sudden loud, deep groan caught the attention of Alex as he looked towards one of the buildings from where the sound came from. There was a crash as a hulking figure landed on top of an abandoned car, the sheer force of its landing completely crushing the vehicle, shattering the glass windshield. By now Alex was distraught by the various feelings of horror, hopelessness and confusion. Still sat against the bars, he watched as the weird needle-armed monsters turned their attention to the figure that had jumped from the building. Once again, it was a humanoid monster. But its appearance was much different. It was a hulking figure that was well over seven foot with a wide chest, huge arms and square like head which had no facial features. Just like the needle-arms, its skin was decayed with absolutely no body features. It was like a steroid induced Colossus.

Alex could do nothing but watch as its huge feet stamped across the ground as it made its way forward, knowing it would crush him without effort. But he soon realized that its fight was to be with the other monsters as it reached out with its huge arm, it bicep pulsing as its hand easily wrapped around the needle-arm's head. The other monsters watched as its sister began to flail its arms in rapid motions as the colossus like beast began to crush its head. It squirmed and gurgled, until it eventually went motionless, its feet dangling a few inches above the floor. Alex could see dark streams of blood drip through the cracks of the Colossus's fingers, just before it let the limp body fall to the floor dead.

The other needle-arms stared at the Colossus, contemplating whether or not to attack. But as he stepped forward, his footstep making the road slightly quake, they instantly backed off, and scuttled on all fours back into the mist. All was quiet as the Colossus stood its ground, watching as the monsters disappeared for good. An eternity seemed to pass as the seconds went by, Alex still breathing heavily, feeling like he was going to be sick as he stared at the dead needle arms body in the road, a pile of bloody mush where its head used to be.

_Caw, CAW!_

Both Alex and the Colossus's head turned in the direction of a black crow that was perched on one of the functioning street lights. It cawed at the hulking monstrosity a few times, before fluttering its wings and once again flying away into the pitch black sky. When it disappeared, the Colossus turned its blank, fleshy head towards Alex, and began to stride powerfully towards him.

"No…please God no…" he muttered to himself as he managed to find the strength the bring himself to his feet. He extended his arms forward to plead with the Colossus, but it was hopeless. Alex took a quick glimpse at the dead needle-arm, and imagined what was going to happen to him. His eyes darted around, trying to figure out what to do. The street was too narrow for him to try and run past the hulking figure, especially with its huge arms. Whilst trying to come up with a plan, Alex was oblivious as to what the Colossus was doing.

It lifted its right arm up, and gripped the disfigured flesh on its face. Without hesitation it tore of a portion of its head, which snapped Alex back to reality as he watched in confusion. The wound on its face didn't bleed, but just revealed more decaying flesh, as if it had no body organs or fluids. It flung the chunk of flesh at Alex, which made him stumble back and hit his head against the cage. He groaned in disgust as it stuck to his shirt, and almost immediately it began to grow. Alex began to panic as he tried to rip the flesh off his shirt, but to no result as it just kept growing and growing over his body. It began to manifest itself onto him, spreading over his chest and stomach and reaching around to his back as it covered him in a rotten skin like cocoon that seemed to stay above the belt line.

He fell to the floor, rolling around in a panic stricken state as he tried to pull the stringy flesh from his body. By now he was screaming at the top of his voice as the flesh consumed his arms, forcing them to cross around his body as if he were in a type of monstrous straight jacket. The flesh had covered his torso, his legs now kicking against the floor as he began to feel the decay spread up his neck, reaching up to his face. The last thing he saw before the decay spread over his eyes was the Colossus standing over him, and then there was darkness. The flesh covered his eyes and ears, meaning he couldn't see or hear. His muffled screams were drowned and pitiful as he felt a large hand grab hold off his foot. Alex was being dragged away, using his last bit of energy to kick his legs. He was suffocating slowly, and it wasn't long before the lack of oxygen caused him to pass out.

_Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep..._

Alex laid on his side, feeling weak and exhausted. He could still feel the fleshy straight jacket wrapped around his body, but the cool air hitting his face suggested that it retreated from his head. His eyes fluttered slightly, allowing him to have a quick glimpse of his surroundings. Everything was blurry, and all he was about to make out was that he was in a small padded cell much like the one he usually slept in, except this one was rotten and decaying, dried flakey blood on the walls. Alex also managed to make out a grinding noise which came from above. He was able to open his left eye slightly, looking up at what seemed to be a human sized bird swing attached to the padded ceiling by two thick chains. Sat on the swing was a shadowy figure, the room too dark for Alex to see any details, the swing grinded each time the figure swung.

There was a small ray of light emitting from a circular window in the room, and as the figure swung forward, the light caught it. It was staring down at Alex with beady black eyes. It had thick grey feathers covering its body and a beak, but it looked human. Alex's eye traveled down its long skinny legs hanging over the perch, before his vision became blurry again. Once again, he fell unconscious.


End file.
